When the Wind Blows

A retired couple, Jim and Hilda, live quietly in the English countryside. War news comes over the radio. Jim reads the government leaflets and follows the instructions to the letter: he takes the doors off, props them against a wall, builds a shelter, stores water. The bomb falls. The two come out of the shelter and try to get back to normal. The subject is not the war but two people's trust in the state killing them. Jim believes every sentence in the leaflets; nothing about radiation was ever explained and neither of them ever understands why they are getting ill. The horror comes from that ignorance. The form rests entirely on the ordinariness of the two characters. They make tea, talk about the garden, remember the last war. The tone never changes; the only thing that changes is their bodies. The source is Raymond Briggs's graphic novel. The animation combines two techniques: the characters are hand drawn while the house was built as a full-scale model with drawing laid over it, which allows the camera to move inside. David Bowie sings the opening song and Roger Waters wrote the score. John Mills and Peggy Ashcroft voice the couple. Who it is for: viewers interested in nuclear war narratives and animation used for adults. Who it is not for: anyone expecting lightness from animation; the last half hour is genuinely unbearable.